Unbinding

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The further they recede into the past, the more Tenar dreams of the days when she was Arha. The living darkness of the Undertomb wraps round her like a blanket; she feels her every counted step, past and future, as part of an intricate dance. The line of eaten girls, the line she broke, stretches behind her. Sometimes she thinks herself dead and born nameless into another body, another girl who breathes in fumes and dances for hungry ghosts. Sometimes the lines that bound her life to the other Arhas become the ones that bound the prisoners, starving, and she cries out to Kossil to give her a name. And Kossil refuses, and then sometimes she burns, the walls of the Undertomb glowing around her and the shadows just beyond, reaching in to take what's theirs.

That's when she wakes up crying out, and crying reaches for her name and knows it, holds it to her heart. That's when she goes to the child's room and watches her shift in sleep. Therru curls in on herself, trembles in silence. She's been eaten, too; there are bound and burning places within her she will never leave behind. But like Tenar, she won't give others to the emptiness. The girl has a name.

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Thank you! I imprinted hard on The Tombs of Atuan as a young girl and always had a bit of sadness about the end of that line despite its obvious horrors... I think Tenar would too, even though she'd never even contemplate unbreaking it, and that's kind of where I started from with writing this.

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I have to read the longer one soon too. but this drabble is perfect! just beautiful writing -- economical and vivid. I don't know the story but I FELT it. you know which Kossil and Arha I'm picturing. :)